The long-awaited Pensions Adequacy Review could now begin next week, after Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, told MPs that there was “more to say” on pensions before parliament goes to recess next week.
Kendall was speaking to the Work and Pensions Committee about the activities of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) yesterday (16 July) and was pressed by members over the government’s plans for the adequacy review.
Earlier this week, the Pensions Management Institute expressed disappointment that chancellor Rachel Reeves had not used her speech at Mansion House on Tuesday to announce the Pensions Adequacy Review.
In response to a question from Labour MP David Pinto-Duschinsky, Kendall said: “There will be more to say about pensions before the House [of Commons] goes into recess, in terms of some of the longer-term challenges facing today’s workers and tomorrow’s pensioners.”
She added that she was “very concerned about the adequacy of pensions”, but emphasised that the measures within the Pension Schemes Bill were “a really important first step”.
Recess begins next week on 22 July, with parliament not reconvening until 1 September. There is then another break of about a month for party conference season, between 16 September and 13 October.
“I am concerned about the risk that tomorrow’s pensioners will be poorer than today’s. I do not accept that that is good enough, and we need to face that head-on.”
Liz Kendall, work and pensions secretary
“We will be saying more soon about the next phase of our pensions review,” Kendall said yesterday. “I am concerned about the risk that tomorrow’s pensioners will be poorer than today’s. As a Labour politician, I do not accept that that is good enough, and we need to face that head-on.
“I am concerned particularly about those on low incomes who cannot even put food on the table, let alone think about paying for their pension in retirement. We have more people who are still paying off their mortgages when they retire and more people who will be renting into retirement.”
The secretary of state added that solving these issues would require “long-term thinking” and building a consensus about how to help people achieve a “decent retirement”.
“We will all end up picking up the pieces of pensioner poverty, so we have to take some difficult longer-term decisions to tackle those problems,” Kendall said.
The DWP today confirmed on its website that it would publish three pieces of research on Monday linked to the adequacy review: an analysis of auto-enrolment savings levels; an analysis of “future pension incomes”, and a study of the gender pensions gap.
